


Naked Tears.

by fearless_seas



Category: American History RPF, Hamilton - Miranda, John Adams (TV)
Genre: 5 +1 things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional, F/M, Insomnia, LGBT+, M/M, Memories, Minor Character Death, Self-Hatred, Separation Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Thomas and Alexander are sad, Thomas has too much love in his heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-08-31 11:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8576554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Thomas Jefferson has seen Alexander Hamilton at his worst. Of course they wouldn't tell anyone, who would believe that mortal enemies could ever love each other?(the five times Thomas Jefferson saw Alexander Hamilton cry, and the one time Alexander saw Thomas cry)





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegreatgayjatsby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatgayjatsby/gifts).



> END-NOTE:  
> \- I have all of the chapters written already.  
> \- I am not neglecting my other fics, I am simply taking a break and writing something new. So expect updates to those after this is done.  
> \- Updates will come on Thursday's (most likely in the Afternoon or Evening).  
> \- If you have any questions/comments/concerns please feel perfectly free to contact me on Tumblr (@sonofhistory).  
> \- I am gifting this to @thegreatgayjatsby they are a great fanfictioner. 
> 
> \- Presley

_March 8th, 2003._

 _______________________

          This day went plenty well divergent than Thomas Jefferson had expected. A change from what he had prophesied when he turned over on his side with the musty morning air enveloping him, managing a heartfelt smile as he watched Martha’s ears twitch as she slept. He ended up getting lost, twisting strands of her long strawberry locks of hair between his fingers, melodically watching the sunset pool on the walls of their bedroom. Work had been silent- work was never silent. The discord of the room was near a dead, set tone of stone. Only the shuffling of papers and the firmly pressed tongues and unfavorable melancholy. There was bagatelle to discuss- and nothing was communicated, this was pleasing.

          The reticence was quite favorable to Thomas, reminded him to home, admonishing him of Virginian. It was a spark in his mind, how much he truly missed his home. The heat, the taciturnity, the beauty of the cascading hills of green transcending among one another. The fruit trees bearing thick, emerald leaves and abundant, heavy yellow oranges that weighed down the branches like sparkling dew drops in the sun. Lightly, almost absent mindlessly, a sigh admitted from his lips. A deadly exasperation to his own drift. 

         For once, the cabinet meeting was pleasurable, he was successful in getting his points across to the others, without getting rudely interrupted by a certain someone. He managed to convey with himself voluntarily, the muses he had wished to correspond for so long were not suspended. Every time he stood to mark his scrutiny across today, his mahogany optics fell across the room to the seat of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was his one inconsistency, the fact was that he'd made Thomas speak more than he'd ever had a public occasions. Thomas was a man of few words, little communications yet he seemed to say more than anybody else in a room. Careful in his language, precise in his dialogue--Alexander Hamilton was the first time that he cared small for the capitals he spoke. 

          He had only known the man for less than a year. It was almost stranger to his brain that this was a man with whom he’d sat at his dinner table with, with whom he’d carried glossy laughter with in his dining room, with whom had complimented his own wife’s cooking and marveled at the book collection stacked on the walls or had leaned down until he was head height with his daughter, Patsy to ask her if that book wasn’t just a little bit too large for her. Never undermining her, never dumbing down his language, it was pure-- _admiration_ for her.

         There was a glassy gaze masked over the immigrant’s suttle optics, sooty bangs hung heavy, colliding like waves in contrast with his skin underneath his eyes. There was the threatening signs of sleep deprivations written in the creases of his forehead, a silencing symbol like the quietude admitting from his core. Threatening hefty lids of his eyes in shades, kept shutting, eyelashes fluttering like wings to freedom before blinking open once again in desperation of wake. Alexander didn't think he'd noticed, Thomas _did_. His arms were settled in limply at his sides, clenching the arm of his chair and his shoulders slouched inelegantly- his vision beaming off into the distance and unknowingly his lips quivering. There was a altered melody to the man, and disparate resoundination. The very brutal charging aura that always seemed to surround the flagrant was absent from the illusion.

         For once Alexander Hamilton was silent. Silence was a brutal key ingredient to Thomas’s morale. It was surprising to watch secretary Hamilton almost unmoving. His jaw was clenched in an unsettling manner, his knee was not bouncing up and down against the ground, a hypertension release, his fingers were not fiddling absentmindedly with objects in front of him. He was a near statue; something that Thomas Jefferson had not witnessed before. He found the back of his thirty-seven year old mind alive with partial ideas, fragmentations of thoughts and mild temperaments. He didn’t dare to speak them at loud. His Martha always remarked how he seemed to speak with his movements, _“Always a quiet man, aren’t you Tom?”, a wink, "You walk like an angel"_ , a blush from the counter. Every night before they fell asleep, she’d trace the nail marks indented in the palms of his hands, _“Now, tell me what you wanted to say when you did that?”._ He at no time felt like his reflections didn’t mean anything with her.

        _Say something._

         Thomas careened frontal, eyes focusing across at the seated Hamilton. His lips tremoring, vibrations central in his chin. Deep in his apprehensions--as if he had no apprehensions. He was dull, lifeless individual. His body was only a tomb, and his sanity seemed a cage.  

         _Say something._

       The hands before of him intertwined their fingers together, he began rubbing his appendages together, cracking the knuckles in bereavement. A weak strategy of attempting, his forefinger on his right hands rooted and set again and again the silver banded ring on his left hand. They had chose a ring that best fit his agitations, fiddling with his hands in substances of anxiety temptations. 

         “Say something”, he whispered. It was forced in a satisfying blow, his cheeks turned ruby when Attorney General Edmund Randolph cast him a viewing from his left of bewilderment. Melodically, his foot began springing up and down against the carpeting on the floor, making up for the treasury department's solitude. The leather sole of his shoe reverberating in anticipatory glances. Hamilton did not speak a letter, remaining stoic for the remainder of the cabinet meeting.

 

⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅

 

         When Washington dismissed the cabinet members from their post, and spoke his apologies towards Vice President John Adams, for he was unable to attend (Thomas found himself grimacing at the man, who was suppose to be his closest friend). Thomas grounded himself teething with solicitude, it filled him to the brim, he constructed by himself being the first one to exit the meeting. On shaky footing, and his briefcase grasped loosely between his tips, he treaded away. He could accept the rush as his shoulders fell with relief. Hair bouncing silkily on his shoulders. Finally, he was out of there. He just willed to get home, comfort of his Martha, warmth of his children. He yearned to drop his briefcase against the linoleum and observe as his family greeted him. He needed to get away.

          Thomas grinded his palms together as he promenaded and palpated the pressure pressing out against his temples in pounding notions, attempting to brush on the misery. Martha would allay his skull down on her lap, combing her delicate hands through his hair, pressing the tips of her nails into the tight notches in Thomas’s back, the momentary release flooding a wave of endorphins to submerge him, he swam. This aspiration motivated a rare simper to peal the corners of his lips back with excitement. After a never ending day.

           “Jefferson.”

           Thomas’s vision seeped, convictions were hindered by a runty voice on his left, wavering, unsteady in tempo, beat and harmony- an imperfect symphony. Craning his neck to the lateral, he peered down, continuing to stride as he maintained the conversation. His simper dropped when the familiar figure trotting at his hip was the very same man who was the cause of his delightful day, he huffed in an attempt to keep up with the longer legged of the two. A sorrow grew in his throat, “What may I do for you, Secretary Hamilton?”. This day just couldn’t seem to get any longer, now could it?

         The more compendious man, nearly running at Thomas’s accelerated bounce, glancing most especially flustered--but that was Alexander Hamilton for you. He brushed a long piece of umber hair behind the shell ear that had come loose from his messy ponytail, positioned at the base of his neck. He continued trotting at his side, extracting papers out of his beige, leather messenger bag. “If you please, would look at the revisions I made to the debt plan that we discussed?”.

         Thomas fortified traipse and a familiar bout of anger stimulated in his core. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in stress, “Secretary Hamilton, as I already told you- you will have to speak with Vice President Adams before coming to me or proposing to Washington”. At his side, Hamilton’s face fell and Thomas scrutinized that near the corner of his vision that Hamilton was swallowing down his pride by the gulp.

          It wasn’t lengthy before the Caribbean started up once again, “Jefferson, how can I speak with Adams when Adams is never fucking here?”. At the name, one he used to honor with great disposition for an extended period of time, a man he had once called his friend, and man he had- “I was just thinking, considering the idea that you--Thomas Jefferson--are the secretary of state and this bill I need to head to congress includes the change of the states, I was just-”. Hamilton began to lose speed, retrieving his momentum and decreased speed behind him as the stack of loosely gathered papers caused Thomas’s OCD twinge inside of him to pulse his eyelids to twitching as the papers all collided with the ground in a resounding collision. Dancing by Alexander's feet, he raised to cup, covering his face in astonishing. 

         Morality stuck him like a freight train. He wouldn’t admit that examining Hamilton in such a depressive state caused his heart to seize with contemplation. Thomas disconnected in his steps, inclining down on his ankles and scraping up several multicolored sheets of papers off of the ground. He didn’t bother to see what they were, because he already knew, but when Hamilton collapsed to his knees in the vacant hallway, a hand outstretched to receive his papers, Thomas couldn’t help but notice the fact that his hands were shaking or that there were tears welling up in the brims of his eyes. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen tears before, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the more emotional state of Hamilton to emerge, but this was-- _illusionary_. Less coercive, more coarse.

          Thomas froze, pausing. The outstretched arms containing all of his papers maintained it’s position--he did not let go of the sheets. Alexander's end of the stack blurring in shake, whips of white, their hands connected. Hamilton in his most pathetic state accelerated his eyes up towards Thomas's, meeting at the center. A seizing brood on his heart and he immediately felt a strike of mere pity. Hamilton glanced away abruptly ending their seconds of eye contact, tugging on the papers until they slipped from Hamilton's grasp and were loosely in his arms once again.

          “Hamilton?”, the immigrant breathed, there was a flash of momentary pang, Thomas saw Alexander as a human. “Are you okay?”, the words were out and Thomas was unable to take them back.

         There was a tiny sob, and Thomas was stricken back, “What? I-I’m fine, Jefferson- it’s none of your business”. Hamilton hurried to rapidly brush the tears that were trailing from his eyes and down his cheeks in artistic silhouettes. Thomas did not maneuver, choosing to be solid, fluid in his exasperation. The man who only showed vexation, only showed his wish was being seen in a momentum or unquestionable emotion. A man who was only three years his junior, a man he had once called his friend-

         “Hamilton, are you su-”, Thomas was never known as someone to quit or give up.

         It wasn’t even a full question when Hamilton butted back in, jolting up from his knees to stand above the man. “Like I said-” Alexander hissed, and Thomas watched the edges of his eyes crinkle, beginning to turn red as his chest heaved. There was a secondary of pure humanary contact, and Thomas saw the flash of lies strung up in a mountain of fates behind his brows near his skull.

         Something he’d pick up from Martha, knowing her soft pale fingers tracing rings underneath his eyelids, _“Behind your eyes, Thomas--you are so much more than you believe you are, why don’t you see that?“._ Martha always saw it, _“Your thinking again, your thinking again Thomas, you can tell me what your thinking about”,_ Thomas hadn’t realized he was thinking, tearing his eyes away from the city lights shining above the city like a sea of stars. The teeth nipping at the inner flesh of his cheek paused, his head turned to meet the cocked head of his partner. Martha always knew when he was thinking, or when he had something to say. There was a pause at the dinner table whenever they’d visit Martha’s parents--sweet people but Thomas definitely "failed" to mention his bisexuality. Martha gripped his hand from underneath the table when the matter of gay rights was executed, running a thumb over the skin at the top of his palm and tracing more lines of corruption. 

        A surge back into reality, Alexander Hamilton’s mouth kept opening to form new words, but the loss in speech, he exhaled and truth ringing like a silver bell stole his dialect, bringing his tongue, “If I don’t get this debt plan through…” he peered to the side, and Thomas could feel the creases in his leather shoes pressing against his feet, “There are attempts to impeach me from Washington’s cabinet because of my illegitimate birth certificate”. Thomas watched the tears lightly welling up in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill. His chest turned to stone and the bones rattled against one another, chiming in language. A throaty respire pressured in like a bulb, Alexander Hamilton was catching fire quickly, spreading to the man in front of him, the man he despised standing in front of him with the only water. “I have kids to feed-”, Alexander began to sob and he covered his mouth, he swallowed, “I have a wife to house--I have debts and bills to pay--”.

         The man in front of him was now whimpering lightly to himself, his hair hiding his eyes like a thick blanket of ivy. Above them the hall light flickered eerily and Thomas took his caution. He thought too much, or he thought too little, but for such a tall man of little words all he was good for was to listen, to hold and create a strong hold. Whether it was his wife’s quiet sobs on his shoulder in periods of grief, or his his children's cries into his neck when they fought. Hamilton fell to his knees, taking the balance off of his ankles and collapsing in a messy heap. Cautious striking him like a timer, an arm extended from his side and lightly swiped the pads of his fingers against the shorter mans shoulders. He jolted and the hand covering his face removed to peer out through one eye. Without thinking, Thomas’s other hand came to swipe the tear that had silhouetted itself down Alexander Hamilton’s cheek.

        Thomas tugged him closer and in the middle of the hallway in the office building, Alexander Hamilton was held so tightly against him that Thomas’s hand could feel the dull beating of Hamilton’s frantic heart. For that moment, Thomas was able to think of Alexander Hamilton as more than just Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was a person, he wasn’t an idea, he wasn’t a symbol, he was truly only a man. The way Hamilton kept balling his fists in Thomas’s shirt, or the way his body was a quivering mess and his eyes were screwed shut reminded him of his hand, slowly feeling the kicks of the children that Martha had bore.

         “I’ll speak with Washington when I get the chance.” Hamilton didn’t respond but burrowed his head further into Thomas’s suit and nodded, a subtle whimper to his person.

        That night, when Martha asked why his suit shirt was all wet, for the first time, Thomas lied.


	2. Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas lost his wife to illness, Alexander looses his wife to love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can always hit me up on Tumblr @sonofhistory! Hope you all enjoy! I worked super hard on this.

_September 2nd, 2006._

________________________

          Everyone had read what _he’d done_. It was a lie if you hadn’t. It was published in the newspapers, it was passed around the office, emails and documents. It blew up and it spread like wildfire, casting it's ugly shadow and licking its was indolently down the walls of the obligation. _The Reynolds Pamphlet_. At least that’s what everyone else branded it. _Observations on Certain Documents,_ just named too formal to create all their conspiracies. It was definitely not what Thomas expected when he returned to his work on Monday morning. 

          He awoke that morning to a rooted pounding in the cavity of his chest, a vacancy in his soul and turned to his side to trace his fingertips against the desolate half in the bed, they swiped the soft sheets. Thomas never slept on that side of the bed, he was never able too. It was an almost normal morning. The depressive aura that had enveloped his body in a silhouette of melancholy regression for his years, darkened the bags hung lowly underneath of his eyes. One year and the pain of the cold metal against his temple here to remain. Despite the company of his daughter, Thomas’s New York City apartment never felt more lonely than it did now. The strings of his benevolence ached in the dawn when he’d rise to Patsy curled up at his stomach, balling her tiny fists in his shirt, her short legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

            Essentially, Thomas was her comfort from the sorrow and the bleak remembrance. Intermittently, Thomas couldn’t bring himself to rouse her up from her slumber. Forsaken, dark and when Patsy finally arose, Thomas would pretend to continue sleep as she placed a hand over the beating in his chest, quietly slipping from the bed and patting down the hall. She'd dress and periodically, Thomas would catch her adjusting the pillows on Polly’s absent bed. The grip on her bedroom door, gleam of the golden knob and the crushing set of his jaw, the tears that formed in the creases of his eyes. Patsy was so much stronger than him, so much resilience. Only Patsy didn’t shed a tear at her mother’s hospital bedside. Patsy didn’t weep when Lucy and Polly were sent to live with their aunt in Virginia. He didn’t want to admit that he needed help, but when Martha passed--Thomas was drowning. He didn’t like that two of his three living children were living miles away from him in another state.

          Thomas rose that morning, Patsy bolstered him to make the bed, tucking the comforter delicately and patting the pillow down specially on Martha’s side. Patsy aided her father and climbed into the cabinets to reach the cereal when she noticed he'd become too tired to make breakfast, in another bought of insomnia. She fixed Thomas’s crooked tie, licking her fingers before stepping onto the curb in front of her school. Thomas watched her long puce hair billow in the wind, cascading down her back, getting lost in the site of her as she stole the stairs two at a time; she did not glimpse back. Thomas tuned out the cars honking arrogantly behind him before he sped away, wiping the tears frantically from his eyes, blurry vision as he drove. For just a moment, Martha was in his passenger seat and her blonde hair silking across her cheeks, their hands intertwined on the center console. But Martha wasn’t there, and Martha was gone.

          He pulled into his office parking space, gathering a deep breath and picked his briefcase from the feet of the passenger seat of his car. He wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck as he walked, adjusting his large, black framed glasses and flashing his ID card to the security guard of the building, who nodded. As he headed up to his office he certainly didn’t expect the eerie silence that he was welcomed too. Hushed disclosure from everyone else, the generality in hold some sort set of papers in their hands, pointing towards the pages of paper with hungry sneers. All eyes flashed towards him as he entered the office. Hurried, on quick footing, he burrowed farther down in his coat.

          “Thomas!”, Thomas blinked the fog from his eyes, cloud from his brain and viewed as to his right, James Monroe trotted up next to him, energetic to remiss him in his path. His ears gathered up the modulation of the coffee machine boiling in the background and the twisting of telephone cords, ringing from their boxes. 

          Thomas managed a muster out a weak smile for his friend, unwrapping the scarf that was shawled around his neck and throwing it over one shoulder. “Hello, James”, Thomas continued striding and James cursory to follow, added a spring in his step.

          “We need to talk-” James sheathed his fingers around Thomas’s bicep as he dug around in his pockets for the keys to his office. Finding them in his pants, he slithered the key into the brass lock, pushing the door open and flicking on the light hanging on the wall. Thomas fluttered several times as the fluorescent lighting blinded him for a partiality of a minute.

          Thomas respired, and pearled his bag by the door, keys clanged against the wood of his desk and his thermos, he neatly nestled between his computer and his glass jar of colored pencils. “James, can this wait, please?”, it was a desperate act of exasperation, one that failed to be inexplicable. James shook his head, hair falling in front of his set of blue-gray orbs, he rubbed the sleeve of his jacket and leaned against the door frame to the office. Treading to the underside of his desk, Thomas extracted the scarf off of his shoulder completely and set it on the back of his desk chair; character to the leather.

          “Sir, you are going to want to read this”, shoving his shoulder off the door frame, James nibbled on the skin of his lip, waiting until Thomas had completely offset the jacket on his body and folded it underneath where it scarf was hanging. Sliding a thick stack of papers out from underneath his arm, James patted the corners together, licking his thumb before extending out an arm towards Thomas. Thomas arched an eyebrow, scanning his gaze up and down James’s nerving body, the desperation in James’s optics read like an open book and Thomas’s chest floated down before pursing his full lips and tugging the papers out of James’s hands. He piped up again when the papers were out of his grasp, “Thomas, you remember the letters I sent you between Hamilton and his younger mistress... Maria Reynolds?”. The older Virginian ceased in his movement, casting another disapproving introspection through the rims of his glasses.

          Thomas cleared his throat and flipped the papers until they were all right side up, it was becoming apparent that James was now bringing a hand to his lips and chewing on the edges of his nails in anxiety. “James, what happened?”

          James didn’t rebuttal, but mumbled through the nails in his mouth and shot another reflection towards the thick booklet of sheets. Thomas tore his amusement off James and using his thumb, flickered through the stack of compositions. “Jesus Christ, who the hell wrote this?”, they were loosely threaded together, almost a hundred pieces of ink stacked amongst. It was a question that James gaped his entrance to return, antecedently Thomas insolvented the questioning censorship and peered towards the cover of the pamphlet. _Observations of Certain Documents_ , it read like a death memorandum. Immediately a pool of anxiety brewed in his lower stomach. He swigged the lump in his throat, his pinky scraped over the charcoal ink on the underlay of the page.

_Alexander J. Hamilton._

          Notably, he twisted patent the front signature of the journal and cruised across the page. James with anticipation began tapping his foot anxiously against the ground, Thomas held up a hand, slicing it through the air and James abruptly ended and began instead slapping the leather bracelet around his wrist with a certain rhythm. Thomas didn’t ask him to quit that time.

_The spirit of jacobinism, if not entirely a new spirit, has at least been clothed with a more gigantic body and armed with more powerful weapons than it ever before possessed. It is perhaps not too much to say, that it threatens more extensive and complicated mischief to the world than have hitherto flowed from the three great scourges of mankind, War, Pestilence and Famine. To what point it will ultimately lead society, it is impossible for human foresight to pronounce; but there is just ground to apprehend that its progress may be marked with calamities of which the dreadful incidents of the French revolution afford a very faint image. Incessantly busied in undermining all the props of public security and private happiness, it seems to threaten the political and moral world with a complete overthrow._

          Thomas gulped not taking his commencement off of the writing, “James, tell me right now- what is this?”

          James shifted his footing, and for a man who was tall, booming six foot he couldn’t seem to look any humble in form in front of Thomas. He spaced his mouth and Thomas held his insuffalation, “It’s the Reynolds's pamphlet, sir”.

 

⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅

 

_A principal engine, by which this spirit endeavours to accomplish its purposes is that of calumny. It is essential to its success that the influence of men of upright principles, disposed and able to resist its enterprises, shall be at all events destroyed. Not content with traducing their best efforts for the public good, with misrepresenting their purest motives, with inferring criminality from actions innocent or laudable, the most direct falshoods are invented and propagated, with undaunted effrontery and unrelenting perseverance. Lies often detected and refuted are still revived and repeated, in the hope that the refutation may have been forgotten or that the frequency and boldness of accusation may supply the place of truth and proof. The most profligate men are encouraged, probably bribed, certainly with patronage if not with money, to become informers and accusers. And when tales, which their characters alone ought to discredit, are refuted by evidence and facts which oblige the patrons of them to abandon their support, they still continue in corroding whispers to wear away the reputations which they could not directly subvert. If, luckily for the conspirators against honest fame, any little foible or folly can be traced out in one, whom they desire to persecute, it becomes at once in their hands a two-edged sword, by which to wound the public character and stab the private felicity of the person. With such men, nothing is sacred. Even the peace of an unoffending and amiable wife is a welcome repast to their insatiate fury against the husband._

          It wasn’t what Thomas foresaw, but it was so much more than Thomas regard. Ninety pages, ninety pages playing himself into the role of the helpless victim, ninety pages that he wrote in an attempt to protect his honor. Ninety pages of extended paragraphs, confabulations and multifractals. He couldn't help but induce that it was a joke. Two years ago when James Monroe approached him with irrefutable proof that Alexander Hamilton was involved in a torrent affair with one Maria Reynolds and in turn paying blackmail money to a James Reynolds--Thomas refused to believe it. Even when a fight broke out in the office between Monroe and Hamilton, one he was forced to intervene in and one that he took a fist to his jugular--that was one of the only times Hamilton showed his apologetic remorse.

          Thomas traced the undercut of his jawline where the bruise used to lie on the neck of his skin, he couldn’t seem to consider that a man would trade his lover for anything. It was bitter for Thomas to down. By the time he reached the closing statement of the pamphlet, his temples were throbbing in hurt and he felt bile rising in the hollow of his throat. _How was Elizabeth Hamilton taking this?_ Thomas was good friends with the elder of the Schuyler sisters, Angelica Schuyler. She had been good company when his wife had died and they stayed good friends. Thomas could think back to only several weeks ago when Hamilton had brought Eliza into the office to formally meet Vice-President John Adams.

         Thomas had examined her from the shelter of his office, not meaning to intervene in Hamilton’s private affairs. He rose from his office to pour himself another cup of the sloppy congealed coffee that clung in his windpipe, from the break room to distract himself from peering out of the slicing blinds of his office. Y _ou could tell her right now and this will all be over, she’ll be free from his lies, she’ll be okay, but he’ll be ruined._ He slammed his blinds shut, growled and cracked out a bottle, knocking two pills of Advil out of his stash before heading to the coffee machine. He mixed the sugar into the brown mixture and observed the creamy milk incorporate into the darkness with a tiny wooden stirring rod.

          He was finally aware that there was a small voice behind him and he turned from the machine only to come face to face with Elizabeth Hamilton. She was very beautiful, just like her older sister, Angelica. Scarlet, wine lipstick was elegantly molded into the soft flesh of her lips, her pale skin was blemished with circling colors of rose blush on her cheeks. Her large, sunless view glared up at him, nictitate several times and the rough edge of her high cheekbones hardened her beam.

          “Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson?”, a sweet voice. 

          Thomas peaked the corners of his mouth up and marveled silently to himself on how lucky Hamilton was, attending how the blue dress she was wearing fitted elegantly around the curves of her hips and how there was a certain light hidden between the murky chestnut of her optics. “Guilty as charged”, he spoke for response. Out of the corner of his survey, Hamilton was nowhere to be seen and he leered Mrs. Hamilton in front of him, peering over the edge of his coffee mug when he raised it to take a sip.

          The dahlia of her labium turned into a buoyant simper and she tilted her head, slightly cocking. “My sister, Angelica has told me so much about you-” she cupped her hands in front of her stomach, Thomas forgot about all the work he needed to be getting to, “I don’t know if you know me, my name is Eli-”

          “Elizabeth Hamilton, formerly, _Ms. Schuyler_ ”, he set the coffee mug down on a nearby table to his right, freeing his hands from the warm heat of the glass, staying on the calluses on his grasp. 

          Thomas felt pleased with himself when she bounced a little where she stood and twirled a piece of ebony hair around one finger, “I see you’ve become quite good friends with Angelica”, Eliza quipped, and Thomas ignored the underlying meaning hidden behind her phrases. "While my husband--", she poised a charming eyebrow, "--is not your biggest fan, Mr. Jefferson".

          There was another seizing tug on the strings of his cardiac, “Of course, she had been quite helpful over these past few years…”, Thomas identified the glow behind Eliza’s pupils dim a little and the creases of her orbs wrinkled, “...Physically good to have some company, emotionally-” he lapsed for greater effect, “Mrs. Schuyler-Church and I have built quite a relationship”. The remnants of coffee was still glued to the meat of his portal and he chewed miserably. "Politics seems to bring the bite out in the best of us", verbally drained--and he was so very tired. Eliza had a sleepy, dream-like effect to her. 

          _Martha._ Thomas would never admit that Angelica took the trip with him to move his children, it was Angelica who rubbed circles into his back, it was Angelica who emptied his last bottle of liquor down the drain of his kitchen sink despite his miserable, helpless protests; it was Angelica who helped him complete all of the tasks that his Martha wouldn't ever be there to see. Whether is was taking Patsy out for lunch, taking Patsy to mall--Angelica was always there for him. They’d effectively pieced it all back together. The weeks after her death, it was Angelica who sat next to him on the bed, polishing reassurance into his thigh, talking the gun down from his head--

          “Mr. Jefferson?”

          Thomas scintillated himself back to reality, settling his focus back on the woman ventral of him, his caffeine-free morning was effecting his conception and seizing the corner table he’d set his coffee cup on with an iron grip of pain staking morality or memories. Eliza radiused forward without caution and grinded the pad of her thumb against the skin of his jacket for easement.

          “Are you alright, sir?”.

         Thomas contrived a delicate express former reaching forward and placing another hand on the hand she’d settled on the elbow of his jacket. “I’m okay”. He lied. “And please,” Thomas tapped his chest, “Call me Thomas, any friend of Angelica, especially sisters--I consider a good friend”. He considered Alexander Hamilton and didn’t allege another.

          Eliza smirked, her cleverly pruned eyebrows swelling against her forehead, “Angelica always told me your emotional lies”.

          Thomas twirled his taste almost comically, “Angelica is always the sport, I’m afraid”. The pounding in his cranium began to thumb out in a melodic taunting and he craved the more Tylenol, Advil-- _anything_.

          Elizabeth retorted out a snicker, throwing her head back more or less and tipping her chin, the mood of her laughter soon faded and tension between them shattered. Eliza’s face shifted sincere once again and Thomas bowed before drawing his attention to the ground. His neck twitched and faced forward again when Eliza’s remaining still hand, resting at her side rose to cup his cheek. “Thomas, I’m so sorry…”, Thomas sucked in a wheeze and the deep groves on his skin shivered with inconsistency, “...I know she was an amazing woman”.

          Thomas let out another gulp of air as Eliza’s thumb swiped against the rough, sprouting stubble on his cheeks. “Please--”, Thomas led a hand to his cheek, sparkling owlishly and shutting his eyes for an extended period of time, leaning into the touch and pausing Eliza’s movement, “I don’t need your pity, Ms. Elizabeth.”

          “This isn’t pity, Mr. Jefferson”, Thomas cringed slightly at the loss, “It’s sincerity”. Without control, their eyes staying together, Thomas felt the brims of his eyes well with tears, they leaked dully out of the corners of his large, doe, bronze eyes. “I am only a human- I couldn’t imagine losing Alexander, and with my deepest condolences- I am sorry for your loss”, she pressed a sticky, lipstick kiss to his throat before squeezing a circle into his wrist reassuringly, it burned where she touched him and casting one last squint over her shoulder towards Thomas before she left.

          _In the gratification of this baleful spirit, we not only hear the jacobin news-papers continually ring with odious insinuations and charges against many of our most virtuous citizens; but, not satisfied with this, a measure new in this country has been lately adopted to give greater efficacy to the system of defamation—periodical pamphlets issue from the same presses, full freighted with misrepresentation and falshood, artfully calculated to hold up the opponents of the Faction to the jealousy and distrust of the present generation and if possible, to transmit their names with dishonor to posterity. Even the great and multiplied services, the tried and rarely equalled virtues of a Washington, can secure no exemption._

          Thomas finished reading the pamphlet. He shut the pages closed with shaky fingers. He dragged his glasses off of his nose and roughly pinched the bridge. That poor woman. The blurriness that affected his vision, for his glasses were off--in the pools swimming before his vision he could envision Elizabeth’s cherry lipped glee and Eliza’s roomy cimmerians sighting up at him like he held the whole world in his palm.

          Angelica always questioned why a man who has only seem the worst of humanity, witnessed the most terrifying pain was plagued by such infatuating positivism. “I’m not positive for myself”, Thomas gestured with his shoulder towards Patsy, seated at the corner with a pencil located tucked meticulously behind the shell of her ear. _I do it for her, just like she does it for me._ Angelica didn’t understand. Somehow, in the limited minutes Thomas had spent with Eliza- Eliza was able to see right through him and was able to see the flickering flame brewing behind his eyes. The glow behind the shadow of the form of a man.

            _How then can I, with pretensions every way inferior expect to escape? And if truly this be, as every appearance indicates, a conspiracy of vice against virtue, ought I not rather to be flattered, that I have been so long and so peculiarly an object of persecution? Ought I to regret, if there be any thing about me, so formidable to the Faction as to have made me worthy to be distinguished by the plentytude of its rancour and venom?_

           Thomas placed his glasses back on his face and he went on fluttering several times. _The papers neatly folded in front of him. How could a man give up everything? How could a man be so selfish as to give up such a beautiful spirit?_ Someone with enough soul for every single person on the earth. He gripped the pamphlet, the fingers wrapped around the paper gripped tightly, the white of his knuckles protruding. His jaw set and when he let the papers go in the trash, they slid against the meat of his fingers, they all tumbled into the tiny pot. He was singing with animosity- so just so that he didn’t even notice the blood shuttling, dripping from the rips in his fingers.

          Thomas was wrestled from his cerebration as from across his desk he could read the time stamp labeled on the clock on his desk. 20:38. Thomas knew by this time Patsy was already home, postulated on the sofa in the living room waiting for her father's arrival home. Usually it was pretty late, unless he was able to leave early on the rare occasion. He ran a hand over his eyelids in a circular, occipital press, a calming motion and denomination. The beating in his chest delayed and paper cuts in his fingers, adrenaline pierced into his skin, stinging with laceration. He didn’t allow himself to look weak, even the quiet of his own person.

        _It is certain that I have had a pretty copious experience of its malignity. For the honor of human nature, it is to be hoped that the examples are not numerous of men so greatly calumniated and persecuted, as I have been, with so little cause._

          It wasn’t long before Thomas neatly stuffed his papers and binders into his briefcase, turning the dial off on his desk lamp, flicked the ceiling light off as he left, fitting the brass key into the grooves and locking the door behind him as he left. He found the office empty, all of the lights were off the cubicles were emptied and he wrapped his scarf around his neck once again and tugged the lapels of his coat closer, cloaked around his chest. It was only September and the clouds are already propelling in. It definitely pissed Thomas off to an extreme. As if life wanted him to stay as far away as he could from his home. This time of year, the apples were christening on their leafless branches. Ruby fuchsia, delicious golden reflecting against the apricot sun.

_I dare appeal to my immediate fellow citizens of whatever political party for the truth of the assertion, that no man ever carried into public life a more unblemished pecuniary reputation, than that with which I undertook the office of Secretary of the Treasury; a character marked by an indifference to the acquisition of property rather than an avidity for it._

         He respired, the toes of his shoes clicking with the ground below his feet and if he wasn’t too jaded he would attempt and make a beat out of the tonality. His brain heavy with thought, sopping with information he teethed with the idea of getting home to his daughter. The passing offices on his left were empty and Thomas found himself staring sharper at the elevator down the hall--as if staring at it any deeper and closer would make it come any sooner. Thomas was vaguely aware that down the hall there was a light on in somebodies office and Thomas threatened himself to keep moving until the label on the office caused Thomas to blink several times.

          _Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton._

          It wasn't a surprise, Thomas didn't think that he'd be showing up at all today given the current issues at hand for man. He ceased, respited, another tepid white paper cup of milky coffee was held between his hands like he was a church and that was his bible. It got him through the day, even if he did prefer tea much more- and even if he was a deist the effects of coffee stimulated himself more. From the outside of the office, Thomas could make out the familiar tapping of fingers pressed tightly against the keyboard--he wondered how the damn thing wasn’t smashed yet. Alexander Hamilton was always known to be one of the last ones in the office, but that was when he had a wife, and when he had somebody to go home to, _how long would he stay in the office now?_

          Thomas felt his brain pulse and he guided for a few moments before augmenting a hand to the wood of the door. The pads of his indenture swiped against the golden label on the door, framed by protruding black plastic. He held his breath and shoved the door, more shine slicing it's way across the hallway carpeting.

           “Hamilton?”

            It was plenty well what he had expected. Papers, cream colored folders scattered across his desk like a sea of dice. The dim lamp light in the corner stood on a tilted table. It made Thomas think of his chronic headaches and he almost fell to his knees in despair. The styrofoam cup in his hand was molding in on each other as a drop slid down the extremity onto his cut fingers. He didn’t wince, his arms finding themselves to his coat pocket and the scarf around his neck squeezed his throat like a noose--he was drowning now and he couldn’t swim. Eyes rounded the room, they took a momentary glance throughout his surroundings before falling onto the main desk in the center of the room.

         Alexander Hamilton.

         Thomas didn’t consider that Alexander even knew that he was standing in his doorway, or the anger that was rising inside of him he could not contain. Thomas followed the inhuman arch of Hamilton’s back, the hair that had fallen in front of his eyes was not brushed back, or kept up neat but was hanging like a thicket of ivy in front of russet. Greasy on his scalp like a sloppy mess, pupils blown out to huge proportions. His fingers, curved over his keyboard as if it was his _savior_ , his _god_ , his _religion_ and his _church_. His shirt was wrinkled in the front, a glass mug lying on the floor and underneath the cup where it rolled sensuously was a dark pool sharpened into the rug, contrasting deeply. 

          Hamilton seemed a ghost, ghastly skin, his body was not his own and the heavy soul that he always showed in the passion of his person, the soul that flew like golden wings and a halo against his back- was not in its body. It was a stranger experience and before Thomas’s mouth could form another set of remarkability, Thomas took a careless stride forward, cautious and prohibitory. He was aware that his shoes were now crunching over broken glass and his eyes fell down to his leather shoes. He adjusted the foot, manipulating it to the side, broken shards of glass were scattered across the carpet like sprinkled dew drops on fresh green grass. The splintering wood pin-pricking the surroundings like a fragmentations of another broken frame of a man--a symbolic representation for the torn society and private life.

           His head glanced up to the spot at the desk to where Alexander sat privately. His feet crossed underneath him, his gaze never leaving his computer screen and Thomas’s view couldn’t keep up with his fingers--Thomas noticed that he never hit the backspace key. A man of so many mistakes, and a man of so little mistakes-- _which was it? Could you be both?_  His feet holding him up by his toes, Thomas reached out his un-cut hand, brushing the glass away and dipping his hand underneath to grab a scratched photograph. He shook the minuscule shards of heated sand and immediately brought the photograph to his eyes, through his glasses he still squinted in the dimly lighted office, blinking before his heart fell and the cavity within him tightened.

           His memory immediately recognized Eliza’s silky jet hair, this time her lips didn’t not bore any lipstick, upturned into a miserable smile, a helpless, endearing and triumphant grin. The sheet were a ghastly white, and beads of sweat were dripping down her face, mixing in with the perspiration of tears carved into her skin. Swaddled in a baby blue blanket, Thomas recognized the tiny poke of wild brown curls and dusty ginger freckles powdered across the child’s face. Alexander Hamilton's little prize, Philip Hamilton.

          Thomas's first impression of the little soldier was not up to it's perfection limits. It started with Philip knocking a photo of his sister, Jane off his desk. It was months later and shards of glass still pinned into the leather of his shoes. For a moment, he swore he could see Martha. The sunset that peered through the hospital window that casted silhouettes against the bed sheets were salmon and there were juvenile spinach plants lining the window seal. Martha always loved their little gardens. For just a breath, Thomas was with her in that photograph, a violin tucked underneath his chin as he bowed, tracing the bed with her giggling, begging him to stop. “Tom! The baby is sleeping!”, the twittering was what woke up the baby, but the babies never cried.

           Thomas’s shoulder rose to his ears and he felt his lip quiver before lifting himself up, tearing his heartened admire away from the photograph up to Alexander Hamilton at his desk. His fingers caressing against and intersection of the desk, flicking away a few stray snapped pens.

           “Hamilton?”, Alexander didn’t respond, but lowered his stare and burrowed deeper in his shirt, attempting to hide screwed behind his computer, narrowing his perception shorter towards his computer screen. Thomas grieved, sentiment scanning the surface of the desk. His hand shifted, letters were tumbling out of his door inbox and Thomas masked his fingers around a crimson letter on his desk, picking it up to his face trying to read it, maneuvering it to cascade the sunset perfectly onto the lettering. 

          “Hate mail”.

          Thomas jumped slightly, plummeting the letter down on the desk and biting his tongue. There was so many letters. _From who?_

         “Are you happy now?”. The typing discontinued, the only one constant consistency and the only common variable was gone. Thomas’s shoulder flattened when Hamilton’s eyes came up to look, sliding his fists off of his computer keyboard, releasing the mouse and the pale of his palms fell open. Nothing was keeping Thomas from recognizing the familiar deepening of black bags underneath his eyelids, hanging heavy, low and thick. Sleep deprivation, it was nothing new that Thomas noticed- but it was always there. Thomas would never admit he'd replaced the coffee when Alexander came in with non-caffeinated. Quietly, silently watching out for him. Sometimes arriving in the office in the morning to find Alexander's head fallen on his computer screen and his eyes shut peacefully, jaw grinded, he'd thrash awake and reach for the gun that wasn't there. 

          The white of his eyes deviated red and Thomas noticed the crinkles at the outlines of his temples. Ringlets of wisdom, and melodies of unfortunate souls. But Alexander brought it upon himself, the tightening in Thomas’s bosom didn’t stop him from momentary sadness. _“You’re too generous, Tom. You have a heart that would fix every corrupted in the world. You find the good in everything my love”_ , vacantly, Thomas’s eyelids shut in ecstasy, because for just a second, Thomas could feel her soft touch on his cheek and her hot breath on spine of his neck.

          “My own party hates me”, Alexander listed off, balling his fists, indenting nail marks into his skin, words--Martha called them. “The office hates me”, Alexander tried to mask the screwing of his mouth or the irresistible urge he felt to break. “My wife hates me”, his eyes fell to the side of his desk and he broke the eye contact. “My kids--”, Alexander didn’t continue. There was peace for a minute, no voice, no typing, no arguing, no cars in the street below, no wind slapping against the pane of the window; another flash and he wasn’t in the large city, he was in Virginia--a place where car honks were non existent and the parsley growing on the windowsill of his apartment took up an entire garden of pruning and beauty and the patch of multicolored roses were fading to brown, thorns sticking into the ground. 

         The hand that the Immigrant brought to cover his mouth used it’s thumb to pad the tears underneath his eyes, attempting to mask his emotions. “Well?”.

          Thomas’s head snapped back to his own fucked up reality, watching the tears trailing silhouettes down Alexander’s cheeks. “Well, what?” he swallowed and his fingers itched to run a gentle touch down Alexander’s neck, smooth the fraying spasm of his lips. It was Hamilton’s turn to snap back to his own reality, the anger in his brows wavering, trying to maintain that artifact that he was alright. Thomas knew better, Thomas knew from his own experiences, Thomas knew better, Thomas always knew,  _Thomas knew._ The tension between the two sifted, and the Virginian felt his feet shift from underneath him and his high thighs hit the corner of the desk and he was in front of Alexander’s desk chair. He was still seated, and Thomas felt like a giant.

           “I’m waiting for you to laugh”, Alexander’s head declined forward and his cheekbone twitched with the potentialities envenoming his mind, “I’m waiting for you to tell me that I deserve this, I-I’m waiting for you to tell me that I’m worthless, I’m waiting for you to tell me that I never deserved her or _any_ of _this_ , I’m waiting for you to--”, a whimpering sob escaped in a blow past his lips, he was quick to shut his mouth, quick to try to stop the oncoming flow of emotional tears, closing his eyes, his chest falling, heaving up and down with desperation written in his collar bone. Hamilton’s shaking arms threaded his wrists together, wrapping in front of his chest, his nail beds coming to scrape into the skin at his hips, leaving little red marks of self hatred.

          Again, Thomas crouched, sinking to Alexander’s level, dipping to his knees, feeling diminutive than Alexander but there was no way that he was any narrow than the man in this self-battling stage. He couldn’t ignore the fact that Alexander’s had moved his head between his own knees and his entire body was shaking. Sobbing silently to himself, it was a mystery to Thomas for a man that was so loud with his opinions was so hidden with his emotions. _He doesn't show weakness like you._ Thomas himself, a man of muted notions and quietude emotional states.

         “I’m waiting-”, the sobbing words that mused from his voice, marking from his throat, scratching the inside and rising in his stomach like thick bile, broken dialect that was cracked with every locution. The hand at Thomas’s side quivered and hovered in the air as it rose before brushing Alexander shoulder lightly and cupping the bone. The silent sobs that once admitted from his body were now rising in melody, and Thomas thought of the rising action culminating at the end of his violin symphonies, peering into the living rooms on the nights he worked overtime to find Patsy tapping indolently at the ivory keys, flipping through the black and creating her own harmony, creating her own memorandum, her own story. 

          The hand on Alexander’s shoulder felt the tiny hiccups of air that he was struggling to catch with his lips, breath escaping him in a sorry attempt to breathe. _Survival_. A tiny whimper blew past his tongue, his eyes screwed shut as a collection of tears slithered down his cheeks. Thomas rose another hand up to pull Hamilton off the chair. As if he wasn’t in control of his body, his counter slid right into his arms, kicking out his legs and balling his fists in Thomas’s coat, the fists he was flailing around piercing knuckles into the spaces between his ribs. Without thinking, Thomas’s hands threaded through Alexander’s hair, whispering lightly in his ear as a broken sound of sobbing stole throughout the air and echoed in the catacomb of space they were confined in.

          Thomas didn’t judge, how could he? The man may have burnt his reputation like a bridge, his legacy intricately in messy scrawl, not being able to know if he is going to come home to his wife in his bed or his children at his feet. Knowing, that he _never_ will have his wife in his bed, knowing he will _never_ have all his children at his feet again.

         _“Thomas Jefferson! Such a pleasure to meet you”, Thomas let out a grin, his eyebrows rising on his forehead before poking out a hand to shake the shorter man who grabbed his hand and strained him down almost to his level, completing the arch in his back_

        _“Alexander Hamilton, I presume?”, Thomas was plenty pleased so far with the man. Short in stature but enough courage to lead an army, a voice of rebellion and triumph. “Your legacy during Yorktown proceeds you”. Bold enthusiasms._

          _Thomas couldn’t help but notice Alexander’s lips purse to contain his joy of the complimentary, his neck blushed in his rare modesty. “But Mr. Jefferson, it’s indeed your skill with you pen on the Declaration that really exceeds me”, Mr. Hamilton offered a slight bow and Thomas was in a struck of admiration and courtesy. “I would love to dine with you sometime, Mr. Jefferson”, the hands in front of his stomach shifted and rubbed their fingers together in an anxiety release. “I would be honored to hear what it was like to be chased away from your own home by the British!”_

         _Thomas shook his head, waving a hand in front of his body in the air, drawing traces in the sky, “Mr. Hamilton, your courage during the war is nothing less than admirable. I am happy to be working with you on this cabinet”, Thomas’s simper grew and watched the gold melt into Alexander’s eyes._

          _Dazed for a minute Alexander nodded his head, “O-oh, of course! You have done many wondrous and remarkable things in your life, I would love to hear you accomplishments--from the man himself!”.'_

  
_Thomas clicked his tongue, “Same by you, my good man. I’m afraid to me, my most prized accomplishment in my life has been my family”._

_“Oh?” Alexander cocked his head to the side, as if this piece of information struck him, “I have four children myself”, there was a proud streak to him and Thomas was clearly amused and interested, “I have three sons and a daughter”. Thomas smiled, lacing his fingers together in front of him, “And you, Jefferson- how about your offspring?”_

_The mirage never left his visage, “I have five children”. Thomas in that moment, never mentioned that two of his five children had already passed. They are still my own._

          Thomas was vaguely aware that his hands had found their way to Alexander’s hips, holding them in place, to keep him from stuttering too much as his body convulsed in grief. “I’m just waiting”. The words he was struggling, drowning in a sea of words to speak, were spoken and Thomas bit his tongue to keep himself from his edge. _I’m waiting to join my Martha. Your Eliza is right there, and you can’t reach her._

          The fist balled in his shirt, screwing it into a wrinkle, but he didn’t care. He held no decorum, for the many that was in front of him, he was fixing. Could he fix a man that was so broken? Broken things will never be the way that they used to be. Thomas wasn’t mended with time, Thomas wasn’t mended with love. He learned to see the bigger picture and to envision a brighter side to his darker place. To Thomas, the most beautiful things in the world _were_ the most broken. 

           “Waiting for what?”, a question, solitude. 

           “Anything”. An answer, continuous. 

           This wasn’t the way it was suppose to be. Thomas wasn’t suppose to be seated on the floor of Alexander Hamilton’s office floor, he wasn’t suppose to be hugging Alexander so constricted against his chest that he could _feel_  the other's heartbeat through the layer of clothing and skin. He wasn’t suppose to have his arms cherished around Alexander’s hips, thighs jointed. He wasn’t suppose to be threading his care through Alexander’s hair like a child, like a _lover_. He wasn’t suppose to be branding Alexander, _Alexander_ and Thomas wasn’t suppose to be here. But he was Thomas Jefferson, the great mender, going so far as to restore the broken things he had no business patching.

           He was aware that the person in his arms was not crying anymore, assuring in shaky breaths of air as he breathed, whimpering weakly. Applying pressure to the voice in his soul, the words in his head that had taken solace over his heart. “I did it to save my honor”, Alexander mused, a hand running up Thomas’s wrist and padding the scrape of his knuckles over his veins connected like a lifeline beneath his skin. “I lost my wife and my children to save my honor”. Alexander chuckled before shifting his chin to glance up at Thomas from his arms, “You’re such a quiet man, Thomas. I don’t understand how you do it. I don't understand how you lose a wife, and four children and still breath."

          "I'm not."

         _I was taught as a child that my voice doesn’t matter._

_I was taught as a child that my voice was too quiet for anyone to hear._

_I was taught as a child that my voice was too radical._

         As if Alexander was tracing the years of quietude on the indentations on the break of his iron sheath, the clench on Alexander’s melanoid hair, cording the strands together for comfort. Something Martha used to do to his hair. The fingers on his scalp, so close to his brain, so close to his _mind,_ to his _person._

_He was taught as a child that his honor was the most important thing._

_He was taught as a child that his story was all mangled._

_He was taught as a child that he could never do the great things characters did in his books._

_He was taught as a child that his mother was a whore, that’ it didn't matter she worked hours in the factory._

_He was taught as a child that he would grow up to be just like his leaving father._

          Relations. And through the stories Thomas collected in his finger tips, he found that they were both taught as children,

        _It wasn’t okay that they stared too closely at the football players at school._

_It wasn’t okay that when they were found kissing boys behind parking lots._

_It wasn’t okay when they told people that they cared for other boys just a little too much._

_It wasn’t okay when they…._

        “John Laurens was a brave man”, flexible on his tongue, out before he could catch them. Thomas felt Alexander loosen out of his grip. Immediately, he pressed a hand to his mouth to conserve the worded energy, “I’m sorry.”

        Alexander was still for a moment before shaking the hair out of his eyes. “How do you know about him?”.

       Thomas shrugged his shoulders, feeling too warm underneath his jacket, "Everyone does". Feeling the light in the room grow dimmer as time slowly drawled on, drinking the sweet dew of passing time. He thought back to the tiny portrait on President Washington's desk, meddled in the middle and didn't say another syllable. 

          Desertion postulated the tension between the two of them. “Martha was a remarkable woman”. It was Thomas’s turn to sense the tears brimming the edges of his eyes, he held his breath, sucking the life. The black drops jarring his vision like like a sea of stars in the deserts of time when his ribs seized, rattling against one another. In those twinkling stars he saw Martha’s smile, and her large blue eyes looking up at him in his grasp. She slipped away, Thomas couldn’t catch her. “If you mind me asking…”, Thomas hung head sat up, seeping the rest of the words flooding out of him, “...How did she die?”. Thomas’s stomach dropped, the life slipping away in front of his eyes and he was lost. 

          _“Tom, dear?”, Thomas maneuvered his head away from his cooking, the vague smell of tomato sauce and parsley stuck in his senses, clouding himself._ Thomas couldn't help, watching the scene from a third person view, watching the events unfold and watching fate intertwine, winding it's rope--the clouds grayed outside the large bay window- it was going to be snapped. Even when she’s gone, Thomas could still smell it in his home. She’s gone, and she’s still here. “ _Do you mind grabbing the tylenol?”._

          _Thomas licked his thumb, casting her a glance of worry, knitting his brows in the center, “The stomach cramps again?”. Every doctor since Lucy-Elizabeth’s birth had shrugged it off in a simple examination as Premenstrual._

          _“Don’t worry, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson, your wife’s body is just getting used to having regular menstruation again.” the doctorly smile, phantomed into his brain as they scrawled out another careless prescription, ripping the papers and handing the slip into his hand. Thomas knew things. Just like he knew it wasn’t just a bad case of PMS._

          _Martha cast him a wince, covering a hand over her stomach, her knuckles teething white at the bone, “Please, Tom?”. Thomas paused, a familiar ache in his stomach before setting the spoon into the pot._

          _“I think we are out, I could go get us some more?”, Thomas settled a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tense knot motion in her shoulders. She always showed her emotions with her mouth, the pink of her lips screwed shut in agony. “I’ll grab you something stronger if I can”._ _A kiss on her forehead before he left. Protective misery._

        Don’t leave.

         _“I’ll be back in a bit, alright?”_

         Don’t leave.

          _No reply, and Thomas pursed his lips before grabbing his keys off of the coffee table._

         Don’t leave.

          _Thomas opened his mouth, I love you, he mouthed. Thomas swallowed hard before slamming the door shut._

         Don’t leave her.

          _Thomas picked up the prescription at the drugstore, counting at the bills from his wallet and handing them to the man with a shy smile and gripping the paper bag._

         You shouldn’t of left her.

          _Thomas’s calls head straight to voicemail, by the fourth "Sorry, Martha here! Can't come to the phone right now but feel free to-", pulsating with anger, he throws his phone, it slams against the dashboard and it tumbles between the seats and he runs a shaky hand over the scratchy stubble on his face. His grip on the wheel tightens as he almost runs a red light._

         You shouldn’t of left her.

          _Thomas climbs the stairs to his apartment, reaching the top floor. He paid extra for his apartment so that his family could at least have a view of the sunrise in the early mornings._ _It’s quiet when Thomas enters the apartment, dropping his keys on the coffee table and trailing a finger over the arm of the couch. “Martha?”_

        You shouldn’t of left her.

          _Thomas wasn’t expecting to find his wife in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor._

         You shouldn't of left her.

          _Thomas didn’t want to find himself on a normal Saturday morning checking Martha’s pulse while on call with 911._

          You left her.

          _Thomas held up his children up to a hospital bed murmuring to himself, they are too young to see this. Martha touches all of the hairs on their heads, counts every single one of their eyelashes and places a tiny kiss on each of their foreheads._

         You left her.

        _Thomas laid with her, reading her_ _Laurence Sterne’s novel_ _Tristram Shandy._

You left her.

           _Time wastes too fast: every letter / I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours / of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return… and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which / follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make!_

        You left her.

       _Thomas remember’s that when she finally whispered calmly, closed her eyes in his arms his own rolled back, and he fell to the floor._

        You left her.

         _Thomas doesn’t remember that he was carried out of the room unconscious._

        It’s all your fault.

        _Thomas stood over a grave with all his children. Martha always loved lavender roses._

         I thought you loved her.

        _Without realizing it, blanking out in a moment, back to the world the edges of his eyes were blurred with tears. He wouldn’t make this about him._ “Complications”.

        _“From the birth of your daughter, I’m afraid your wife’s tissue was compromised- irritated, in simpler terms-”_

_“She’s going to alright- right?”_

_“Mr. Jefferson, I’m afraid prescriptions your wife was taking greatly effectively her Vitamin E. If we take her off transfusers she’ll die.”_

_“Well can’t you just give her it?”_

_“Mr. Jefferson, that’ll take time she doesn’t have.”_

_“But, she- can’t, she’s Martha- she can’t just-”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

          It’s your fault.

          “I’m so sorry, Thomas”.

          Thomas blinked, eyes ushering in the light from his surroundings. He was in Alexander Hamilton’s office, the light simmering lowly in the corner hovered for a minute, flicking and licking up the side of the wall. Thomas shook his head, tugging Alexander closer to his body, tightening the grip around his waist. “Don’t be”.

           Alexander sighed, shifting his body, fitting perfectly into the space between Thomas's mind, Thomas’s heart and Thomas's soul--the bridge between his arms. “I can’t go home--I can’t ever go home”, his pitch wavered,, screwing tighter for a second, “I can never go home”, a soft whimper and the voice dropped, hovering above a whisper, "I don't have a home". Thomas didn't have a home. The apartment he occupied with his daughter was not a home. There were windows, there were doors and there were rooms--it was not a home. A home has life, a home has love- a house was not a empty room. The empty side of his bed was suppose to be occupied, and their was suppose to be laughter when he awoke in the morning.

          “I can help.”

          Thomas didn’t bother explaining to his daughter why Alexander Hamilton took Patsy’s place in his bed when she padded out of the room early in the morning, why Hamilton was tucked cleverly underneath his arm, why Hamilton’s leg hooked around his waist, why the blinds at the opposite side of the room were open, or why Thomas tucked a lock of hair behind the man's ear. 

          Patsy didn’t even ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER NOTES:  
> \- Observations on Certain Documents (The Reynolds Pamphlet) was published on August 31st, 1791. August 31st, 2005 was a Saturday- so this is a few days after the publication.  
> \- Alexander is 37 in this chapter.  
> \- Thomas is 40 in this chapter.  
> \- Martha Jefferson died in 2005.  
> \- Martha Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson were so in love that just them singing and Thomas playing this violin together warded off three guys trying to kill Thomas Jefferson.  
> \- After Thomas Jefferson's wife died, he had to send this two younger daughters to live with their aunt and Patsy went with him to France. Later Polly came to France after Lucy-Elizabeth died.  
> \- Patsy Jefferson was extremely close with her father after her mother's death. It was actually only Patsy who was able to talk to him in the three weeks he locked himself in his room after her death.  
> \- Patsy is 12 at the moment and Polly is 6.  
> \- It was James Monroe and two others that were the ones who comforted Alexander Hamilton about the Reynolds affair. It was cleared up, but because the story was leaked- Alexander and James almost got into a duel that was stopped by Aaron Burr. (Hence the past fight scene).  
> \- The italicized bits are all excerpts from the actual Reynolds Pamphlet.  
> \- Alexander Hamilton did play himself as the victim in the Pamphlet- that I am disgusted by. Maria Reynolds is a victim in this situation.  
> \- Monroe did confront Jefferson about the situation with Reynolds.  
> \- This chapter takes place in around 1793, even thought the Reynolds pamphlet was published in 1797.  
> \- Thomas Jefferson used to get chronic and debilitating headaches that caused him to be bed ridden for 7-8 weeks.  
> \- Thomas Jefferson was suicidal after his wife's death, the only reason he didn't commit suicide was because he couldn't bear the thought of leaving his children.  
> \- Historically, Thomas Jefferson and Angelica Schuyler were good friends. Even to the point where Thomas Jefferson had a crush on her while he was living in France and she in London.  
> \- The first year in Washington's cabinet was actually relatively calm and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton went to dinner together on many occasions.  
> \- Thomas's sister Jane was Thomas's closest sister when he was growing up. When he was 22, she passed away and he was devastated.  
> \- If you caught on, both Alexander and Thomas were scolded for being bisexual when they were younger.  
> \- John Laurens was Alexander Hamilton's lover during the revolution. Laurens died in 1782 and Hamilton never opened up that part of his every again.  
> \- Martha Jefferson was known for being sickly and she died several months after being bed ridden after given birth to her last child, Lucy-Elizabeth Jefferson.  
> \- To modernize her... "demise?" I added what happened to my own Mother- to modernize the strain from childbirth.  
> \- The novel Thomas reads to Martha on her hospital bed was the actual book (Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy.) that Thomas read to Martha while she was passing away.  
> \- "Time wastes too fast: every letter / I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours / of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return… and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which / follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make!" that was what they wrote back to forth to each other on a piece of paper while she was dying.  
> \- When Martha finally passed, Thomas Jefferson did actually faint and was carried to his library where he lay incoherent for several hours.  
> \- Oh and James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson were good friends.

**Author's Note:**

> CHAPTER NOTES:  
> \- Jefferson is thirty eight and Hamilton is thirty five.   
> \- Imagine Martha Jefferson as Blythe Danner from 1776.  
> \- Martha "Patsy" Jefferson was Jefferson's eldest living daughter. He was the closest with her.  
> \- There is no relationship I love more in the world (besides Jedams) than Martha Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson.  
> \- Edmund Randolph was attorney general during the beginning of Washington's presidency.  
> \- John Adams literally never showed up any of Washington's cabinet meetings.  
> \- Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were the legendary romance of American History. It all fell apart after Hamilton started the first political party.  
> \- If you look close enough you'll notice that Jefferson has social anxiety and a fear of public speaking. He actually did in real life.  
> \- If you read close enough, you'll notice Hamilton's hypomania. He had that in real life.  
> \- The first year that Jefferson and Hamilton were in the cabinet, they actually got along and had dinner with each other on many occasions.


End file.
